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Barack Obama denounces the ‘poison of patriotism’ after attack on McCain Barack Obama asked supporters not to devalue Mr McCain’s war service Tom Baldwin in Washington Barack Obama declared that exploiting patriotism “too often poisons our political debates” as he sought yesterday to answer doubts about his love for America and distance himself from supporters who have demeaned John McCain’s military service. In a speech in Independence, Missouri, the Democratic nominee said: “I will never question the patriotism of others in this campaign. And I will not stand idly by when I hear others question mine.” His remarks came a...

DURING THE 2004 ELECTION, Democrats and their allies on the activist Left were adamant that a candidate’s military record was strictly off-limits to criticism. John Kerry was a war hero, and to suggest different was, as columnist David Ignatius averred, defamation. It turns out these partisans meant to exempt themselves from the rule. As an example, observe the nascent smear campaign against John McCain’s military service. This past weekend, retired general and declared Barack Obama backer Wesley Clark went on CBS’s Face the Nation, where he proceeded to dismiss the import of McCain’s military background in the current race. “I...

How a onetime hero of the liberal blogosphere and the Democratic Party spread perhaps the most damaging anti-Obama smear of the primary. On May 13, 2006, Larry C. Johnson -- former CIA intelligence officer, counterterrorism pundit, classmate of Valerie Plame -- put up a breaking post claiming that Karl Rove was under federal indictment for perjury and lying to investigators looking into the leaking of Plame's identity. "Rove Indicted," Johnson blogged. "Frog march the bastard. As Freddie Mercury sang, 'another one bites the dust.'" The post linked to the investigative site TruthOut, and an anonymously sourced story that it turned...

American presidential candidate Barack Obama is preparing himself for a Republican campaign based on racially motivated adverts and images. The slurs about Obama being the first black man to run for president have already found their way onto the television and campaign buttons across the US. Jokes about his name being Hussein, the fact that he once wore a turban and a building that's called the White House but run by a black guy are being pumped out already. Though the election is more than four months away, the campaigns of Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are shaping...

With most of the eight Marines charged in the Haditha, Iraq, incident now exonerated, the highest-ranking officer among the accused is considering a lawsuit against Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who fueled the case by declaring the men cold-blooded killers.

With most of the eight Marines charged in the Haditha, Iraq, incident now exonerated, the highest-ranking officer among the accused is considering a lawsuit against Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who fueled the case by declaring the men cold-blooded killers. In an interview with nationally syndicated radio talk host Michael Savage, the lead attorney for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani said he and his client will look into suing Murtha and the Time magazine reporter, Tim McGuirk, who first published the accusations by Iraqi insurgents. But the attorney, Brian Rooney, said nothing will happen immediately because he wants Chessani, described as a...

Yet another U.S. Marine, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre — bringing the total number of Marines who’ve been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq-war incident to seven. “Undue command influence” on the prosecution led to the outcome in Chessani’s case. Bottom line: That’s zero for seven for military prosecutors, with one trial left to go. I repeat: Haditha prosecution goes 0-7. But you won’t see that headline in the same Armageddon-sized font the New York Times used repeatedly when the story first broke. The Times, Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.),...

Yet another U.S. Marine, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre -- bringing the total number of Marines who've been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident to seven. "Undue command influence" on the prosecution led to the outcome in Chessani's case. Bottom line: That's zero for seven for military prosecutors, with one trial left to go. I repeat: Haditha prosecution goes 0-7. But you won't see that headline in the same Armageddon-sized font The New York Times used repeatedly when the story first broke. The Times, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Jack Murtha alert, big news, ladies and gentlemen: "A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis. Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges Tuesday against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after defense attorneys raised concerns that a four-star general overseeing the prosecution was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha. The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom excluded Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement. Chessani was the highest-ranking officer implicated in the...

Michelle and Allahpundit are right — if the media is going to write about the debunked "whitey" tape, particularly as a trigger for Obama's anti-smear site, there's really no excuse for not mentioning the two sources more responsible than anyone else for hyping the story: pro-Hillary blogger Larry Johnson and Democratic strategist Bob Beckel, who appeared on Fox News claiming a "mighty big shoe" was about to drop regarding Michelle Obama. (Now Beckel accuses conservatives of spreading rumors about her.) Did conservative bloggers write about the tape as well? Sure, but with varying degrees of skepticism. Allah finds the "conservative...

Last week, the campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama announced that it had established a “war room” to battle rumors spread on the Internet and amplified by other media reporting. Obama supporters will use a website titled “Fight the Smears” to identify allegedly untrue statements about their candidate and provide evidence in an effort to refute them. That sounds like a good public relations strategy, but the implementation will ultimately have a negative impact on Obama. The campaign employs the Media Matters for America model for dealing with so-called “smears.” In fact, Obama’s war room uses the George...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama learned an important lesson from the 2004 presidential campaign: Don’t be passive about false rumors. When Democratic nominee and Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, who served with distinction in the U.S. Navy and won multiple Purple Hearts for wounds in battle, was attacked for a lack of patriotism, his campaign was slow to respond. Obama won’t be so passive. The scurrilous attack on Kerry, largely funded by Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, a Republican Party sugar daddy, was outlandish. A group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth posted the ads, coining a new term for dirty...

Mark June 18th on your calendar. That’s the day the National Press Club in Washington, DC will give centre stage to the man behind one of the sleaziest smear campaigns ever perpetrated against a US presidential candidate. Larry Sinclair has for months been blathering on his blog and in a YouTube video that Barack Obama has a dark secret his supporters wish would just go away. He says Obama likes to sleep with men. Difficult to do, but in case you missed it, here’s a little rundown of his claims: * Barack Obama and Larry Sinclair had sex in a...

Barack Obama campaign starts new Web site to fight smears from political opponents at www.fightthesmears.com. The first smear mentioned: "LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word 'whitey' from the pulpit of Trinity United." Well. No. This is what Limbaugh said: "The rumor is -- and we don't like dealing with rumors here -- but the rumor is that Michelle Obama from the pulpit of this church used the term 'whitey.' Some are saying be very careful with this because she might have said 'why'd he,' why did he, the contraction 'why'd he' instead of...

Fight the Smears: Spread the Truth About Obama It is said that a lie can travel the world before the truth can get out the door, and this is certainly true of urban legends and unfounded rumors about Barack Obama. We therefore join his “Fight the Smears� campaign to quash these urban legends and unfounded rumors with proven and verifiable facts. Here are the rumors and urban legends in question: (1) Obama's opponents misquote Obama's "Dreams From My Father" (2) Obama's opponents accuse him of being a Muslim (3) Obama's opponents claim that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance...

"Fightthesmears.com" could be "FighttheDiscussion.com" Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about his campaign." --NEDRA PICKLER, AP The Obama campaign is now going to be spending more time addressing rumors? "Yesterday I wrote about the new team that the Barack Obama campaign was building to counter internet rumor as well as deal with inconvenient truths, by way of offering the "party line" on how to counter the rumors or the damaging truths." --Susan Duclos, Wake Up America...

This is a short, supposedly humorous video showing artificial "real Americans" telling why they are voting Republican. I am linking to it just to show you the utter lack of imagination on the left. They actually believe their own propaganda. The reasons they use to vote Republican run the full spectrum from stupid to racist AND stupid.

John Hagee, the controversial pastor who has endorsed John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that God sent Hitler to help the Jews get to the promised land (Israel, not Auschwitz). Why did God allow the Holocaust to happen? According to a report in the Huffington Post by Sam Stein, Hagee's answer was: "Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." The report raises several questions. Did God have to be so rough in his methods? Instead of putting the Jews on trains to Auschwitz,...

Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Senator John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist. The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA. The...

Leave it to liberals to pile on Sen. John McCain with cheap shots about his age, and we're not talking making jokes about him serving in the Civil War or what not. Mocking John McCain's age, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann imagined that the senator could easily segue from talking about foreign policy or the economy to talking about "buying more Depends or something like that." (h/t Conservative Punk) "You can dissassociate yourself from that remark if you wish," Olbermann immediately added in his exchange with Rachel Maddow of the liberal Air America radio network. Yesterday NewsBusters noted a liberal blogger who...

Samantha Power, the able foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama who referred to Hillary Clinton as a "monster," has quit her role with the Obama campaign. That's too bad, because Power has always been more open and honest than most key players you will find in or around presidential campaigns. Of course, the offhand remark by Power in a discussion recorded by a Scottish journalist was politically incorrect -- both because it was hurtful to Clinton, someone the Anna Lindh professor of practice of global leadership and public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government has known for...

WASHINGTON - John McCain sought to minimize damage to his man-of-character image and his presidential hopes Thursday, vigorously denying and denouncing a newspaper report suggesting an improper relationship with a female lobbyist. "It's not true," the likely Republican nominee said of the report that implied a romantic link with telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman and suggested McCain pushed legislation that would have benefited her clients. "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust," said McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and a hero of the Vietnam War. He described the lobbyist as a friend. McCain and...

The liberal New York Times is wasting no time in smearing John McCain, the Republican Party nominee for President. Late Wednesday, the Times published to its website a story set to hit print editions Thursday, linking McCain to a female lobbyist. The paper suggested the Arizona Senator has been engaged in an illicit relationship. "A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet," the Times reported. "Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff...

DENVER, Jan. 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- A new 527 political group, American Right To Life Action (ARTLaction.com), has sent 524,000 anti-Romney emails targeted primarily to Florida registered Republican voters. The text of that email: American Right To Life: Evidence proves Romney is Pro-abortion American Right To Life Action is proving to voters that Mitt Romney's record, below, is recently and aggressively pro-abortion. The group's ARTLaction.com site documents Romney's recent promotion of abortion with links to official government websites, Romney's own campaign, mainstream sources, and audio and video clips of the candidate himself. Mitt Romney claims, "On every piece of legislation,...

South Carolina has a history of rough politics. Allright, they're downright mean and dirty. Sen. John McCain wasn't the first to get a bitter taste of that in 2000. And now, it seems, some anonymous sources are trying the same smear tactics on Sen. Barack Obama in advance of Saturday's state Democratic presidential primary. There's a whispering campaign underway across the entire state, often using forwarded e-mails, suggesting that Obama is a closet Muslim schooled in anti-American lessons who refuses to take the Pledge of Allegiance. To be honest though, Illinois politics is no kindergarten either. So Obama's campaign.... was...

Let's debunk the biggest myths of the anti-immigration movement that has swept this country and may still have an impact on the 2008 presidential race: that it is not anti-Hispanic, that it doesn't oppose legal immigration and that it's against only "illegal" immigration. Most U.S. Republican presidential hopefuls -- with the exception of Sen. John McCain -- and cable television anti-immigration crusaders on CNN and Fox News are deceiving the public with their claim that they are only against "illegal" immigration. • Myth No. 1: "We are only against illegal immigration. Undocumented immigrants should get in line for visas." That's...

I'VE had a huge response to Tuesday's column about The New York Times' obscene bid to smear veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as mad killers. Countless readers seem to be wondering: Why did the paper do it? Well, in the Middle Ages, lepers had to carry bells on pain of death to warn the uninfected they were coming. One suspects that the Times would like our military veterans to do the same. The purpose of Sunday's instantly notorious feature "alerting" the American people that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets are all potential murderers when they move in next door was...

Friday, January 18, 2008 WAUKESHA, Wis. -- Here in "Cheesehead" country, where Green Bay Packers fans go to Lambeau Field with snow shovels, military recruiting never has been much of a problem -- until now. "These are outdoors, patriotic people," a military recruiter told me as I prepared to speak at a Boy Scouts function here. "Young people up here are tough. They hunt, they ice fish, they go to football games in an open stadium in the middle of a blizzard. This used to be a great place to be a recruiter, but not anymore," he continued. "What's happened?"...

Oh boy one has to believe that Huckabee will be getting some blow-back from this. These push polls have even brought out the South Carolina Attorney General to make this statement: “Last evening the Associated Press reported that that an out-of-state special interest group, Common Sense Issues, had launched a massive push polling effort disparaging John McCain and other candidates for president. In their push poll, Common Sense Issues makes several misleading claims regarding John McCain’s record.“Allow me to set the record straight. In the U.S. Senate, John McCain has been an unwavering voice for the rights of the unborn....

It was supposed to be a revolution. Ron Paul was set to take America and the world by storm by winning primary after primary on his way to the White House. The supporters of the ten-term US Congressman from Texas were convinced that the money he raised would equal support at the actual ballot box. Now in the cold hard days of January, the truth has broken though. So what has happened to Ron Paul? The answer isn't difficult; his support was never very large to begin with. It was magnified by a presence on the Internet (or the "Internets"...

Is Mike Huckabee a fascist? That's the insinuation from Ron Paul, one of Huckabee's rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. And it's a cheap shot. One needn't agree with, or even like, Huckabee to know that throwing around the f-word "fascism" is a low blow. This story is important, because it speaks to the larger question of whether Christians can fully participate in politics without being slurred. Here's the context: Huckabee ran a TV spot in which the former Arkansas governor wishes Americans a "Merry Christmas." And in the background, there's a windowpane, or some shelving, that looks a bit...

After catching Harold Meyerson's latest Washington Post hatemongering against religion in general, Christians in particular, and Republicans especially, all I could say was just WOW! This thing is nearly unhinged and if you took the word Christian out and replaced it with any of the favored, protected minorities that the MSM guards like mother hens, it would be indistinguishable from the kind of pure bigotry that would result in Meyerson's utter ostracizing should it have been written about those protected classes. Calling Republicans/Christians torturers, abusers of immigrants, members of the KKK, bigots and even mean, Meyerson skipped only the Nazi...

HILLARY'S BUNGLED SMEAR By ROBERT D. NOVAK December 13, 2007 -- DAVID Axelrod, the sea soned Chicago Democratic political operative who is chief strategist for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, was taken by surprise in the last minute of CBS's "Face the Nation" on Dec. 2: Howard Wolfson, Sen. Hillary Clinton's spokesman, accused Obama of running a "slush fund." In fact, the Clinton campaign was spreading that story privately months ago. Last summer, a senior Clinton aide told a famous Democratic personage believed favorable to Obama that the Illinois senator was using his "leadership" political-action committee to spread money around...

It's one of a couple Obama-Muslim-smear emails circulating widely, and one of the ones Jonathan Martin and I wrote about in October. It's probably the most vicious of them: It states the underlying hint -- that Obama is some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate -- explicitly. Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy. The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States , one of their own!!!! The email was sent by someone identified...

We've just obtained a copy of the Obama Muslim smear email -- smear-mail? -- that the Iowa county chair volunteering for Hillary sent out. Key quotes: "Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii . When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia . When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia . Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta." And: "Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United...

As if Ron Paul's supporters needed any more motivation to storm the battlements and wreak havoc on the Republican presidential primary, now comes this: the feds are trying to take away their money. Federal agents on Wednesday raided the Evansville, Indiana headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Codes (NORFED), an organization of "sound money" advocates that for the past decade has been selling what it calls Liberty Dollars, a private currency it says is backed by silver and gold stored in Idaho, with a total of more than $20 million in...

Barry M. Goldwater, Jr. endorsed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul for president. “America is at a crossroads,” said Mr. Goldwater. “We have begun to stray from our traditions and must get back to what has made us the greatest nation on earth or we will lose much of the freedom we hold dear. Ron Paul stands above all of the other candidates in his commitment to liberty and to America.” “Leading America is difficult, and I know Ron Paul is the man for the job,” he added.

If you think American politics have gotten nastier, crueler, and more symbolic over the last 20 years, blame Ted Kennedy. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the borking of Judge Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s failed Supreme Court nominee. And it was Ted Kennedy’s bilious bugle blast that brought the man down. Almost immediately after Reagan nominated Bork, Kennedy pulled himself off his barstool and proclaimed: “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could...

The most beautiful thing about America is the freedom it affords its people. How envious I am - as a Middle Easterner - of Americans for such beautiful gifts they have been granted as freedom of speech. It is indeed a wonderful thing to be able to express the heart and not be punished, imprisoned or tortured about it. Last week, as I was wandering in the infinite world of American beauties, I come across a quote in The Daily Mail, an English newspaper, uttered by Ms. Debra Cagan, the deputy assistant secretary for coalition affairs to American Defense Secretary...

By DAVID B. CARUSO | Associated Press Writer 5:36 PM EDT, October 16, 2007 NEW YORK - An Air America radio personality apologized Tuesday for saying that a colleague, the liberal talk show host Randi Rhodes, had been the victim of a violent street mugging perpetrated by "the right wing hate machine." Air America's Jon Elliott announced on his late-night show Monday that Rhodes had been assaulted Sunday while walking her dog in Manhattan near her Park Avenue apartment. He also speculated that the attack was the work of someone trying to silence a liberal voice. Elliott's account of the...

Air America Host Randi Rhodes Mugged By Rogers Cadenhead Watching the Watchers Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes was mugged near her Manhattan apartment Sunday night, losing several teeth in a brutal attack that has knocked her off the air while she recuperates, fellow host Jon Elliott announced on his show early Tuesday morning. "It is with sadness that tonight I inform you that my Air America colleague Randi Rhodes was assaulted last night while walking her dog near her New York City home," Elliott told his listeners this morning on Air America. The attack took place near the corner...

Air America radio host Randi Rhodes is temporarily off the air, but claims she was brutally attacked near her Manhattan apartment are bogus, her lawyer and a police source said today. Fellow host Jon Elliott claimed on the liberal radio network that Rhodes had been mugged while walking her dog, Simon, on Sunday night. Elliot, who said Rhodes lost several teeth in the attack, waxed about a possible conspiracy. "Is this an attempt by the right-wing, hate machine to silence one of our own?" he asked on the air, according to Talking Radio, a blog. "Are we threatening them? Are...

Embattled Northern California Congressman John Doolittle, fresh from attacks on Afghan & Iraq veteran Major Eric Egland (two attacks… one here, and the other here) has now launched on Deborah Johns, military mom and activist for the troops. Doolittle is under intense pressure from an FBI investigation into allegations surrounding his fund-raising, as well as his own party base in the California 4th District just outside Sacramento. His party base is infuriated because Doolittle is a chronic feeder at the Washington pork trough, second only to corrupt congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania, yet the district has little to show for...

WASHINGTON — A letter sent to Rush Limbaugh's boss demanding he be chastised for comments he made on the air about "phony soldiers" is now on the auction block, and the latest bid is a cool $45,000. One hundred percent of the money raised from the eBay auction will go to educate the children of Marines and law enforcement officers who died while on duty, the auction says. Bids will continue until Friday for the letter signed by 41 Democratic senators and sent on Oct. 2 to Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of the conservative...

Perhaps the best response came from the Anti-Defamation League, which called Coulter's comments "outrageous, offensive and a throwback to the centuries-old teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism. The notion that Jews are religiously inferior or imperfect because they do not accept Christian beliefs was the basis for 2,000 years of church-based anti-Semitism. While she is entitled to her beliefs, using mainstream media to espouse the idea that Judaism needs to be replaced with Christianity and that each individual Jew is somehow deficient and needs to be "perfected" is rank Christian supersessionism and has been rejected by the Catholic Church...

Original Harry Reid/Rush Limbaugh Smear Letter "Phony Soldiers" Signed by 41 Senators, Charity Auction Up for auction is the original letter signed by 41 Democrat senators. This historic document may well represent the first time in the history of America that this large a group of U.S. senators attempted to demonize a private citizen by lying about his views. As such, it is a priceless memento of the folly of Harry Reid and his 40 senatorial co-signers. The entire proceeds of this auction.. the entire high bid... will be donated to The Marine Corps - Law Enforcement Foundation, a registered...

NEW YORK Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they needed to "perfect" themselves into -- Christians. It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn't mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded "anti-Semitic." Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity...

Is the truth necessary only when it suits your political agenda? No. Anyone who has ever attended kindergarten knows that truth -- and being honest -- are required in all aspects of life, especially in political forums. But Senate Democrats, in condemning talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh, have proven yet again that they should have flunked out of preschool. Limbaugh had an on-air conversation with a caller about "phony soldiers" -- people who pretend to be U.S. soldiers either to get at money allocated for vets or simply to get attention in order to amplify their views; in other words, actual...

Poll: Soldiers Questioning The War Is Rush Limbaugh right to question Soldiers who don't support the war in Iraq? Yes, troops should not ask questions - 23% No, it's O.K. to question the war - 77%

Juan Williams defends Bill O'Reilly against charges of racism in Time Magazine, and angrily calls out O'Reilly's critics for calling him an Uncle Tom. He charges those critics with intellectual dishonesty for pulling one quote out of context to reverse what O'Reilly really said -- and he also accuses CNN for deliberately misreporting the incident in order to eat into O'Reilly's substantial ratings lead over CNN. It's a media meltdown! It started with Bill O'Reilly's grandmother. And it blew up into charges of O'Reilly being called a racist and me being attacked as a "Happy Negro" (read that as a...